On the happy child

23 February 2013

It was around the age of four that I became happy. I was clever enough to know how to listen when the grown-ups talked about me, thinking I was lost in play, or to read how bodies responded to my tone of voice, my facial expressions, my requests and my needs. I learned quickly that people love happy children – adorable, self-sacrificing, intelligent, joyful children – while obstinate, strong-willed, short-tempered and needy children were routinely shunned by grown-ups and playmates alike. It really wasn’t rocket science, and happiness followed.

There is a lucid memory of a five-year old girl standing in the kitchen on a Sunday afternoon, and reaching out over the stove for the chef knife. She brought it to her wrists, and cried. Tears only came when she was alone.

I remember being fifteen and being told by a girl at school that she wished she could be like me, since I was always so happy. I died inside, just a little, because I had been contemplating ending my life for most of that year, and knew in that moment that no one had noticed.

These days, post-psychologists and post-self-help-shelves and post-the-patient-gifts-of-time and post-bestest-friends, I find that I am less happy. When days show up that I feel like nothing, or unloved, or without hope or God in the world, I seem to hide it less effectively. Those close to me see. Sometimes I start crying in public. I cry more as an adult than I ever did when I was a child.

I won’t lie to you about this. What scared me as a child scares me just as much now. Some days I think I haven’t grown up at all. Sometimes the sadness rises in my throat like a thick, slick mud and I fear, or wish, that it would suck life itself from me.

It is true: there are days when what the little girl learned to believe about life – her own and in general – overwhelms me. But there is this truth also, that since I started feeling it – the sadness and the fear and the tears streaming down my face – I have known happiness once again, too. The girl who could not allow herself to feel her terror, was of necessity the girl who had to numb her own joy. Crying in public means the ability to laugh in public, too, as well as the willingness to take a chance and make a mistake and be imperfect and maybe even amount to nothing.

Sometimes happiness bursts from your chest in bouts of laughter. Sometimes tears remind you of what has not yet healed. Sometimes contentment settles into your bones in the form of a deep silence. Together, they all bear witness to a consciousness living with and within the splendour and the horror of that mysterious thing we call life.

Dreams

6 May 2010

The light of the setting sun was bright, and she had to blink a few times before she could make out the silhouette of the man in front of her.  His face remained hidden, shrouded by the brightness behind him, and she wondered for a moment if this was coincidence.

‘Yes?’

The man was silent.  She wanted to look away from him, her eyes straining against the whiteness behind him.  But from the way he stood there, so close that she could touch him, it was clear he expected her attention.  It was what he had come for.

She waited.  Silence still.  She brought her hand to her face and attempted to shield it from the light’s sharp assault.

‘Sir, can I help you?’

More silence, and irritation began raising its head from the back of her mind.  She felt uncomfortable and became aware that she was looking for ways to remove herself from the situation.

Leave.  The word seemed to arise from a place deep inside her.  Distant, as though she had inherited it from a long deceased ancestor.  But she could not move.  It was because of the man, she was sure of it.  And yet he only stood there.  Silent and demanding of his space, but giving her no reason to feel threatened in hers.

Turn around.  She could not hear the words, and yet she knew that he had spoken them to her.  She obeyed and turned her back on the setting sun and the shadowed figure in front of it.  Her eyes were grateful for the relief, and as they adjusted, she began to see her shadow stretch out in front of her.  One shadow only.  It stretched far, across many hills and valleys, all the way to her most distant memories.

Remember.  She did, again obeying the man without a thought.  And yet it did not feel like remembering.  It wasn’t even the past that she was looking at.  Seeing her shadow fall across the plain, she felt herself become present in every moment of her life.

The first moments of panic.  Who is this man?  She could feel herself retreating.

‘Do not be afraid.’

This time he had spoken to her, and with his words created the confidence he demanded.

The memories were not painful.  Many were filled with laughter, some with tears, but there was no pain.  She was looking at them, but without sorrow or joy or, for that matter, any emotion or thought.

Remember.

She knew what he meant, but now she resisted him.  He had taken a step closer to her.  She could feel him, although they were not touching.  Her breath quickened and became shallow.

Remember.

Tears filled her eyes.  She tried to turn and look at him, but her body refused to move.

‘No!  Leave me alone!  Who are you?!’

He put his hand on her shoulder without saying anything.  Just the silence, and she felt her breaths becoming deeper once again.

‘They are you.  Remember them.’

His voice resonated through her chest as he spoke, filling every moment she found herself in.  She found him impossible to resist, lifted her eyes and looked.  She focused on them, observing them as though listening to a language she had once known but now failed to understand.

She felt herself shiver.  It was dark.  She was alone now, the sun had long since set.  How long had she been standing here?  She felt something cold in her right hand, and knew that it was a mirror.  The old handheld type.  She heard the field around her, and above her the night sky seemed to speak of everything that continues forever but never remains exactly the same.  She lifted the mirror and held it in front of her face.  The moon was full, and so she could make out her dim reflection.  The face that stared back at her looked confused and uncertain, and she smiled back at it.  Then she started down the hill, in the direction of a distant village where the rising sun was about to wake her from her sleep.  She wasn’t alone, she knew, as she made her way back.  Inside her was something new, something strong, something she had once believed in.